Summer roadShow

2012

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MondayTuesday

Wednesday ThursdayFriday

SaturdaySunday

Westbourne

Sports College,

Ipswich

Heath Primary

School,

Ipswich

Saxmundham

Middle School,

Ipswich

Barclay

School,

Stevenage

Sele School,

Hertford

Thomas Alleyne

School,

Stevenage

GoffsSchool,

Cheshunt

Greyfriars

Community Centre,

Ringwood

Lipson

Community College,

Plymouth

Devonport High School for Boys,

Plymouth

St Albans

Town Hall

Seaton

Town Hall

Andover

Guildhall

Torbay

Town Hall,

Torquay

Plymouth YMCA

Kitto Centre

Winchester

Discovery

Centre

Stowford Rise

Community Centre,

Sidmouth

Lyme Regis

Marine Parade

Shelters

Wheathampstead

Village

Weekend

July 23

45

67

8

910

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29

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1

23

4

65

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how did ChaoS and the roadshow begin?CHaOS has been running for over a decade. Our first events were held in Cambridge as part of the Cam-bridge Science Week. In 2002, some of our members thought that it would be fun to pack up our experi-ments in a van and take them around the country for a week – and so the roadshow was born! From these humble beginnings, our volunteers have developed the roadshow such that we are now on the road for a month or more each year.

how does the roadshow work?Our events are based around hands-on experiments that all ages can try, covering all aspects of science from physics and engineering to the biology of how our body works. Each experiment is staffed by an ex-perienced and enthusiastic student volunteer. Small groups of children are guided through each experi-

what is ChaoS?Cambridge Hands-On Science, more fondly known as CHaOS, is a non-profit voluntary student group based at the University of Cambridge that believes that sci-ence is exciting and relevant to everyone. Our aim is to transfer our enthusiasm to the general public through fun hands-on experiments, hopefully showing that science can be accessible to everyone.

About The Roadshow

RecruitmentExperiments

Venue Hire

Publicity

DemonstratorTravel

CampingFood

Vehicle Hireand Fuel

New this year! Our light-mixing experiment, shown above, joins the CHaOS roadshow along with a new foetal skull and new medical models.

ment, with the demonstrator explaining the science behind it at an interesting and accessible level.

In July 2012, CHaOS visited schools, town halls and community centres around the country, bringing our hands-on science roadshow. Over four weeks, we vis-ited 19 different venues across five different counties and saw over 5,000 visitors. 65 volunteers from the University of Cambridge gave up part of their summer to join us and share their passion for their subjects.

who pays for the roadshow?CHaOS is committed to making science accessible for everyone, so entry to all our public events is free. We ask that schools make a small contribution to our running costs, but each visit is heavily subsidised by the generosity of our sponsors. We rely on careful budgeting to keep the cost of our roadshow to below £3 per person reached. We keep our costs down by accommodating our demonstrators in tents, filling up on delicious school dinners and doing as much of the rest of our cooking as possible on a camp stove. We were very lucky this year, being able to spend much of our free time on the beach!

how much does the roadshow cost?Each year CHaOS spend approximately £15,000 over the course of the roadshow, with the main cost being transport (around £4,000, including vehicle hire and demonstrators’ train fares), food (£2,500) and camp site bookings (£2,000). We are therefore hugely grateful to our sponsors for enabling the roadshow to take place!

12 6

3

45

7

8

914

10 12

1516

13

11

3

4

1516

MondayTuesday

Wednesday ThursdayFriday

SaturdaySunday

Westbourne

Sports College,

Ipswich

Heath Primary

School,

Ipswich

Saxmundham

Middle School,

Ipswich

Barclay

School,

Stevenage

Sele School,

Hertford

Thomas Alleyne

School,

Stevenage

GoffsSchool,

Cheshunt

Greyfriars

Community Centre,

Ringwood

Lipson

Community College,

Plymouth

Devonport High School for Boys,

Plymouth

St Albans

Town Hall

Seaton

Town Hall

Andover

Guildhall

Torbay

Town Hall,

Torquay

Plymouth YMCA

Kitto Centre

Winchester

Discovery

Centre

Stowford Rise

Community Centre,

Sidmouth

Lyme Regis

Marine Parade

Shelters

Wheathampstead

Village

Weekend

July 23

45

67

8

910

1112

1314

15

1617

1819

2021

22

2324

2526

2728

29

11

1

23

4

65

7

8

14

1516

13

9

9

10

1211

One of the main aims of the CHaOS roadshow is to visit areas of the country where access to science is not easy, for example where there are no permanent science museums locally. With this in mind, the road-show headed to the south west this year, reaching as far afield as Plymouth.

Many families were delighted to see us; one visitor in Sidmouth said “It’s fantastic to have this visit our small town!” and another “Brilliant! We only wish you could visit here more often.” We visited the Kitto Centre in Plymouth in collaboration with the Plymouth YMCA, who were thrilled that we were able to bring the road-show to a ‘difficult to reach’ population who would not normally attend science festivals or museums. In addition, CHaOS tries to visit schools where science

provision or achievement is low. In 2012, five of the seven secondary schools we visited had attained be-low the national average for A* — C grades at GCSE in 2010. One teacher commented that “Students who can be totally disaffected by science are saying things like ‘Science is awesome!’”

A fantastic event, we all enjoyed it greatly. Thank you to the very knowledgable demonstrators.

Parent

Map reproduced with data with permission from the Ordnance Survey © Crown copyright 2010

The CHaOS Roadshow Route 2012

The roadshow got off to a great start at Westbourne Sports College in Ipswich where years seven to ten were fascinated by the properties of the air around them, investigating what happens when you heat it up and how much it weighs.

Next we visited Heath Primary School where pupils were excited to learn how to make explosions using lemon juice and bicarbonate of soda, as well as using the carbon dioxide produced by this chemistry experi-

ment to extinguish candles. At Saxmundham Middle School we supplemented our hands-on activities with an interactive talk about the science behind hot air balloons.

We then moved to Barclay School in Stevenage and introduced the pupils to a subject rarely covered in schools – the evolution of plants. In keeping with the evolution theme, pupils enjoyed meeting our wide range of animal and model primate skulls.

At the end of the first week, we headed to St Albans Town Hall to run the first public event of the 2012 Roadshow. We enjoyed a very busy day where one popular experiment was our demonstration of air streams; young and old alike got involved in trying to keep a ping pong ball hovering by blowing through a straw!

Our second event of the weekend was at Wheathampstead Village Festival, where the slightly wet weather cer-tainly didn’t dampen anyone’s spirits. We showed our vis-itors a range of optical illusions, helping to explain the sci-ence behind what we see and how our brains work.

Week 1 Ipswich, Stevenage and St Albans2nd - 8th July

Our second event of the weekend was Our second event of the weekend was Wheathampstead Village FestivalWheathampstead Village Festival, ,

where the slightly wet weather cer-where the slightly wet weather cer-tainly didn’t dampen anyone’s tainly didn’t dampen anyone’s spirits. We showed our vis-spirits. We showed our vis-itors a range of optical itors a range of optical illusions, helping to illusions, helping to explain the sci-explain the sci-

Colour mixing, by Lili and Kelly

We continued with our school visits in Hertfordshire, kicking off the week at the Sele School, where pupils (and their headteacher!) got a chance to try building a range of bridges, including arch, cantilever and ca-thedral styles. We then moved onto The Thomas Al-leyne School in Stevenage, where our range of rocks and fossils, including a sample of fossilised shark poo, went down a treat!

Finally, we visited Goffs School in Cheshunt, where the teachers were nearly as excited about the ex-periments as the pupils, with everyone having a par-ticularly good time learning about the physics behind trebuchets.

Hopping down to Hampshire for the second weekend, we visited Greyfriars Community Centre in Ringwood. This was the second time we have visited this venue, and we were pleased to see lots of the same faces again, as well as many newcomers! Lots of people stayed all afternoon to try out all our experiments, with one popular stop being our collection of creepy crawlies.

We started our week in Plymouth at Lipson Commu-nity College where years eight to ten enjoyed learn-ing about the physics of light from both traditional favourite CHaOS experiments such as our ultra-violet light box as well as our brand-new light colour mixing experiment.

We then spent two days at Devonport High School for Boys, on the first of which we ran an extended ses-sion for a small group of children from nearby Prince Rock Primary School. The pupils enjoyed listening to their hearts using stethoscopes and investigating what happens to the heart rate after jumping up and down!

Week 3

Week 2

Fantastic one on one demonstrations, my children were really engaged and involved.

Parent

Devon and Dorset

Hertfordshire and Hampshire

16th - 22nd July

9th - 15th July

The first week of the school sum-mer holidays was met with contin-ued beautiful sunshine, meaning that we were again able to make the most of the outside space at our public venues in Devon.

In Torquay Town Hall visitors were challenged to build their own arch bridge, and once built, try walking over the top. The water rockets were a big hit at Plymouth YMCA, with many families coming back for several attempts at launching the highest rocket of the event.

After travelling to Hampshire, a busy day was had at the Winches-ter Discovery Centre, with fami-lies meeting our cuddly microbes, and having a go at extracting DNA from kiwi fruit.

In Andover Guildhall, Boris the skeleton appeared again for a walk about the town centre to attract the public into the main event. Inside, visitors were able to look at microscopes, try building a cathedral, and meet some more of Boris’ bony friends!

On the second day older pupils from Devonport benefited from the student demonstrators’ ex-pertise in explaining the complex science behind experiments such as the electrolysis of water.

We moved up country to Dorset at the end of the week, and in Seaton the local primary school children enjoyed meeting Boris the skeleton outside their school as term finished. Boris led them to Seaton Town Hall, where they were able to find out more about

the human body from our x-rays and giant hand model.

Many local families were delighted to visit us at Stowford Community Centre, where the improvement in weather enabled us to run some popular messy experiments out-side, including investigating the properties of shear-thickening flu-ids by mixing cornflour and water.

The Sunday spent at Lyme Regis Marine Parade Shelters was glori-ously sunny, allowing us to spread our experiments along the sea-front gardens where both locals and holiday-makers joined in with testing how pulleys make it easier to lift heavy loads and how to gen-erate electricity.

I have just been in to the road show with my eight year old son. What a brilliant event!

Parent

Week 4 Devon and Hampshire23rd - 28th July

It’s EPIC!Child

Great Fun!Parent

What did families think?

The Future...

The event was:

68%FANTASTIC OK

31%

The experiments were:

79%ABOUT RIGHTTOO DIFFICULT TOO EASY

5% 5%11%

We learnt:

59% 20% 19%A LITTLEA LOT NOT MUCH

We stayed for:

36% 55% 7%

1 h30 min 3 h

We estimate that over 2,000 people in family groups visited our drop-in public events this year. We asked our visitors to give us their feedback, and collected 243 questionnaires representing the views of over 800 people. More than half of these visitors consider themselves to be from a non-scientific background, with 60% visiting museums only once a year or not at all. Many requested that we develop leaflets with experiments to try at home, and to bring activities for children young-er than our current target age range. We were pleased to find that 97% of our visitors would come to another CHaOS event.

We enjoyed the demonstrators’ enthusiasm and the intimacy of the experiments.

Parent

We have shown consistently that the CHaOS model is a successful and cost effective way of communicating the relevance and excitement of science to the public.

If you would like to host CHaOS in your school, town hall or community centre, please let us know. We al-ways receive more requests for visits than we can fulfil each year (often from people who have seen us in ac-

tion before), but we will do our best to visit everyone!

Planning for the 2013 roadshow is already in progress, and we are always looking for sponsors. If you are a part of, or know of, an organisation that could help provide CHaOS with the funding it needs to continue the roadshows, please get in touch at: contact@chaosscience.org.uk

“I loved the satisfaction of seeing a kid work out something on their own using information you’ve given them!”

“I enjoyed talking to the families and the great organisation of experiments and people.”

“I enjoyed meeting some great people and enthusing children about Science.”

“I love science, and this was a great opportunity to gain valuble communication skills. “

“It was a great opportunity to take science out into the community and help to spread enthusiasm and interest.”

“Best. Week. Ever.”

what did the demonstrators say?

a special thank you to the sponsors of the ChaoS roadshow 2012:

Helen Feakes at Westbourne Sports College, Richard Bevan at Heath Primary School, Andrea Hall at Saxmundham Middle School, Carolyne Newstead at the Barclay School, Irene Casper at Wheathampstead Village Festival, Simon Clare at St Albans Town Hall, Jan Morgan at the Sele School, Julia Cooke at the Thomas Alleyne School, Clare O’Brien at Goffs School, Jan Determann at Greyfriars Community Centre, James Stroud at Lipson Community College, Angela Crawley at Devonport High School for Boys, Mary Bowles at Seaton Town Hall, Elaine Pawsey at Lyme Regis Marine Parade Shelters, Clare Twigger at Torbay Town Hall, Mark

Rowles at Plymouth YMCA, Graeme Pick at Winchester Discovery Centre and Gabriella Pinder at Andover Guildhall.

Thanks also to the Hunt, Davies and Dunbar families for their hospitality, the Sedgewick Museum for the loan of a number of fossils, the CHaOS team in Cambridge and everyone else who was involved in helping the CHaOS roadshow run smoothly.

Finally, thanks to all of the school pupils and families who attended our events and made our efforts worthwhile with their enthusiasm and enjoyment.

Aaron Barker, Alex Davies, Alice Draper, Alice Coburn, Amelia Southgate, Andrea Chlebikova, Anna Hughes, Anna Kalorkoti, Ashley Smith, Beatrice Tyrrell, Belgin Yalcin, Ben Millwood, Brett Abram, Caroline Sandford, Catherine Hogg, Christina Ye, Christopher Wade, Claire Gomer, Connor Tann, Conor Reid, Craig Burns, Dan Jafferji, Daniel West, Dave Ansell, David Bebb, Deepti Lobo, Elizabeth Mooney, Fiona Llewellyn-Beard, Hamish Lazell, Hannah Ford, Isabel Whiteley, Jachym Sykora, Jaimie Oldham,

Jatinder Sahota, Joe Hobbs, Joseph Hooton, Karen Angus, Katerina Honzakova, Lara Phillips, Liz Ing-Simmons, Maja Petek, Malti Bipin Vaghela, Mark Chen, Mark Durkee, Mark Southall, Martin Buchacek, Michael Darling, Mike Smith, Nunu Tao, Ophelia Crawford, Philip Garsed, Rachel Joanne Chapman, Raghd Rostom, Richard “Miffy” Mifsud, Richard Hall, Richard Ingham, Richard Montgomery, Rosy Hunt, Sally Higson, Sally-Anne Bennett, Sonja Dunbar, Sophie Mitchell, Suzannah Haller, Verena Neufeld, William Benfold.

The 2012 student demonstrators were:

with many thanks to: